


It Takes A Village

by GamblingDementor



Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, Trans Sonny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 21:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12374967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GamblingDementor/pseuds/GamblingDementor
Summary: "They never got better, passed away that December and left me with these memories like dying embers from a dream I can't remember…"Usnavi's feelings that December.





	It Takes A Village

**Author's Note:**

> Because I like my fics to all be mutually compatible as much as I can, this features trans!Sonny which is a headcanon of mine. Since this is set when he was five, it uses his old name and pronouns. I hope you won't mind.

Abuela's house is hot in summer, except for the room with the fan, and cold in winter, except for the room with the heater. Usnavi has holed up in the spare room at the end of the hall and the cold has been getting to him over the past few days. Abuela has brought him warm meals but he has refused to eat them. His throat is dry, hunger is coiling in his stomach, but he doesn't feel any of it. In fact, his body has become numb, but his mind is all the more aching with grief.

 

Abuela has let him stay here for the past couple weeks. The day of the funeral has come and gone, the pain hasn't. He kept up appearances only on that one day, accepting condolences, flowers, words of encouragement, but the night came and he was back in Abuela's spare room.

  


The tears come, every day, except when sometimes they don't, and it feels all the same to him. He wants his parents, he wants his mother's arms around him, his father's pats on the back, he wants the tiny guest room back in DR at their Tía Maria every summer and the heat that feels so different there, not artificial like the American summers in New York. He wants home. They say home isn't a place, it's a person, but when they're dead, what _is_ home except a place? 

  


"Usnavi?" Abuela's voice comes through the door.

  


She always asks before coming in and he loves her for it. He rubs his eyes, finds that they were in fact wet, rearranges his sweater and tells her she can come in. His voice is shaky but it hasn't sounded any different for weeks now. He doesn't want to look her way, but he doesn't turn further away either when the bed dips with her weight next to him. 

  


"Mijo, do you want to come eat with us?" 

  


Her hand is warm against his back but he won't let himself enjoy the touch. Nothing should be pleasurable anymore.

  


"I don't want anything." He pauses. "I want to go to DR."

  


She rubs his back softly, as she does when he's feeling down, but down doesn't even begin to describe his state now.

  


"It's Christmas Eve, Usnavi, are you sure you don't want to come? Sonia asked for you."

  


Usnavi dives even deeper into the covers and thinks of warm sand. He feels Abuela kiss his temple and leave the room. He is about to go back to sleep when the door opens again. 

  


"Usnavi? Are you alright?"

  


Benny is not so subtle. He grabs Usnavi by the shoulder and pulls him into a side hug.

  


“I’m _fine_ ," Usnavi spits out, getting away from the embrace.

  


“Hey, I’m sorry, man, I just wanted to…”

  


He feels guilty, on some level, to be tearing away from Benny, his best friend in the world. On another level, he doesn't feel anything at all.

  


“I know. I wanna be alone.”

  


They stare at each other awkwardly before Benny pats him on the shoulder and leaves.

  


Just when he thinks he’s been forgotten, there is another knock on the door. He ignores it but after a while, they knock again, and he decides that it will be quicker to just open the door. He finds Vanessa with her arm raised, about to knock again, and Nina flanked by her side.

  


“Usnavi,” Nina sighs out anxiously. “There you are.”

  


That seems a little out of touch, considering he’s been here for weeks, but he lets it slide. They stare at him for a while and he does nothing to ease the awkwardness, before Vanessa remembers something and hands him a paper bag.

  


“We made cookies for you this afternoon,” she says. “With Abuela.”

  


They give him a smile that is meant reassuring. He accepts the bag.

  


“Wow, thanks,” he says but his voice doesn't seem in the mood to put any emotions behind it.

  


He is eating his third cookie by the time Sonia sneaks into the room like she always does. At least Vanessa and Nina got the clue and left him to his pain. Or rather Nina did and dragged Vanessa away with a kind smile and a wave his way.

  


"Yo, cuz."

  


"Go away, Son'."

  


Of course, she disobeys, because Sonia never listens to anyone when she's got an idea in mind. She wraps herself around Usnavi like a koala bear, holding him so tight Usnavi can barely breathe anymore. He shrugs her off.

  


"What the hell are you doing?!"

  


Sonia gathers herself and settles for holding onto his arm.

  


"I'm loving you," she replies, the most evident thing in the world.

  


After a while, he gives her a cookie. At least, she doesn't talk.

  


They both startle at the knock on the door and Sonia, the traitor, asks the damned person to come in. Camila Rosario enters. She's wearing her holiday sweater and big earrings, and she got a hand on her hip and a fierce look on her face.

  


" _A comer_ ," she demands.

  


Usnavi may be able to hole himself up in his room to his thoughts and his regrets for a while if the only people trying to lure him out are the likes of Abuela Claudia or Nina, but he has nothing on Camila and cannot find an ounce of strength in himself to resist her. She takes him by the hand and he feels like a tiny little boy who's done mischief when she brings him out to the dining room.

  


Of course, on Christmas Eve, everyone is here around several tables clumsily stacked into each other to fit so many people in Abuela Claudia's small apartment. The Rosarios, and the Garcías, his tía and Sonia, Benny who was allowed to celebrate Christmas with them this year, Abuela's friends from church, even Daniela who doesn't celebrate Christmas but wanted to be here for him. He smiles tentatively and takes his seat next to Abuela Claudia.

  


"There you are," she says and holds his hand. "We were waiting for you."

  


"I call shotgun!" Sonia cries out, shoving Kevin Rosario out of his seat on Usnavi's other side.

  


Kevin grumbles a little bit under his beard and takes another seat. Nina shakes her head.

  


"Shotgun is in _cars_ , Sonia," she points out. "Not at tables."

  


"Yeah, yeah…"

  


Camila Rosario puts a hand on Usnavi's shoulder and they share a smile, albeit more than a little forced, before she starts piling food onto his empty plate.

  


"You cannot stay in your room and miss the pernil," she says, "Especially not this year."

  


He takes a bite, and another one, and of course everything is delicious, from the pasteles to the arroz con gandules, and all sorts of ensaladas, and Abuela Claudia's flan that is a recipe her mamá passed down that Usnavi always loved.

  


"Did you hear? Glorita got herself a new ombré, it looks like she's a lion," Daniela says, starting a long gossip train that Usnavi doesn't really follow, but across the table she winks at him and he feels himself blushing.

  


It's a funny game they're all playing, pretending they don't pay attention to him and leaving him be, all the while constantly glancing at him and filling his plate and patting his back, pinching his cheeks, kissing his hair, a whole whirling around him as everyone comes and goes. Usnavi never says a word but no one is asking him to. A few seats further, Nina keeps staring at him but looks down at her plate or at Vanessa by her side whenever Usnavi catches her eyes.

  


Little by little, he feels a little less cold, a little less alone in a room full of everyone he knows. They eat and then eat some more, and the adults drink, and soon the conversation is dragged to the living room, everyone piled on Abuela Claudia's old couches and chairs that smell like cat hair and lemon from her cleaning detergent. Usnavi never recalls falling asleep, but hours later, he wakes to arms carrying him to bed, a grunt of effort he recognizes as Kevin Rosario.

  


"Shh," he whispers as Usnavi squirms in his arms, feeling more exhausted than he ever has. "Don't let Cami know I woke you, okay?"

  


Usnavi closes his eyes and doesn't say a word, and sure enough, they put him to bed and he feels a hand on his forehead, brushing back his hair. Abuela Claudia, he knows from the dozens of times she's done this. He pretends to sleep, and soon doesn't pretend.

  


There's even more people the next day, but at least they're spread out throughout the day, most people in the barrio coming to present their good wishes to Abuela Claudia and kiss Usnavi's cheek and tell him he's being very brave. He sits on his same armchair all day long, huddled in Claudia's crocheted afghan, staring at nothing. Multiple times Sonia climbs his lap to try and grab his attention, or to talk or joke or sing, and Usnavi only shoves her down half of the time.

  


"Mi amor, there's a present for you," Abuela tells him, petting his hair from behind.

  


Usnavi looks up and sure enough, there comes Camila Rosario, a cup of hot cocoa in her hands that she hands him before dropping a wrapped gift before him. Usnavi first tastes the chocolate − delicious and rich and a little bit spicy − before politely picking up the present onto his lap, large and bulky, probably a book.

  


"Bendición," he says, slowly working at unwrapping it with as little mess as he can.

  


"Dios te bendiga," Camila responds. "You look a little skinny."

  


"He's eaten a bit this morning," Claudia comments. "I'm trying."

  


Behind them, Kevin and Nina also come in, Nina's hair speckled with snowflakes. The door is always open. Usnavi wraps his blanket a bit tighter around him, takes another sip of hot chocolate and pulls out of the gold wrapping paper what looks like a hardcover book, but he realizes he's mistaken as soon as he opens it.

  


"Oh…"

  


Nina drops her coat on the back of a chair and rushes to sit down by Usnavi's feet.

  


"We hope you like it," she says, a hand on his knee. "It's a bit…"

  


It's not a book. It's an album. All throughout its pages, in chronological order from their first arrival to New York in 86, pictures of his parents. They're smiling, arms in arms with the Rosarios. Mami and Camila cooking in what looks like the Rosarios' kitchen. Papi holding baby Nina in his arms, her little fist clenched around his thumb. Usnavi and his parents at last year's Christmas Eve, and then just next to it, a picture of Boxing Day when they gave him a brand new edition of The Hobbit with special illustrations and appendixes. His father kissing his mother's cheek in the bodega as she laughs. There's pictures in here he's never seen before, so many of them, each of them carefully labeled and dated, most annotations in Camila's rigid print but some of them hastily added in by Kevin's scrawls and he notices a few doodles that can only be Nina's. His heart feels triple its normal size and he realizes that he's crying.

  


"It's perfect," he replies.

  


Things don't get instantly better, of course. He goes back to school after the holidays, because life must go on and he has a legacy to upkeep, an education to finish. Sometimes, the teachers let him spend lunch break on his own in an empty classroom and he's grateful for that. Sometimes, he doesn't think about his parents for hours and thinks he can feel a little bit happy again.

  


Benny is awfully kind to him. They were always best friends since they met at school three years ago and Benny decided Usnavi needed someone to keep him right on track. Neither of them knew how right he would end up being, of course, no one could ever have foreseen it, but he's grateful for Benny lending him his homework some days, walking back home with him when he's not up for hanging out at the park with the others, spending break with him. With him by his side, it doesn't feel like there's too much distance between Usnavi and the rest of the world anymore, not when Benny is there for him.

  


Abuela Claudia tells him he can stay in her home as long as he wants, forever if he wants, because an abuela never leaves anyone behind and this is his home too now. His auntie Jane handles the paperwork and he is grateful for that, for not having to go through it all on his own, not at thirteen years of age. She quits one of her jobs to handle the bodega during the day, and then keeps her night job as a waitress so she can pay for rent and bills, and most nights Sonia spends at Abuela Claudia's as well because she comes home too late, but Usnavi doesn't mind sharing his room most of the time. Most of the time, he's fine.

  


He keeps the album and even more, the memories. On his night stand, he has a picture of their last trip to DR, when they asked a cousin to take the picture, Mami's hair messy with the wind, his own smile so bright Usnavi can barely believe it's him. He doesn't really feel like the same person anymore. But then, Nina still looks up to him and he still looks up to her, and Daniela gives him free haircuts for a year and a half after that December, and Abuela Claudia's hugs are still as warm, and Sonia's rambling is still just as impossible to keep with, and Carla still goes to church with him on Sundays, often more to see each other than to hear the preaching. If he is any different than he was, none of them seem to notice, or to care. And if everyone he knows is here for him to show him kindness, Usnavi starts to believe that maybe he could be happy again in the Heights.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment to tell me if you liked this!


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